All Bad Things (A Robotnik story)
by TheHauntingSmile
Summary: Robotnik laments as his world crumbles around him. This short story can be interpreted two rather different ways- one sympathetic, one more sinister. It's up to you to decide.


Dr. Robotnik's eyes darted nervously from the console to the corners of the control room. The motion sensor showed no movement, however his peripheral vision told him otherwise. Sudden movements sent small clouds of dust bursting forth from the shadows, causing him to wince. Now and then he heard what he thought was chuckling; he could have sworn they were mocking him.

His instincts told him to run. Logic told him it was useless. The metallic taste in his mouth told him that radiation was seeping into the bunker from above ground. Not that it mattered; this place was to be his tomb.

A solitary tear cut a glistening path through the soot upon his cheeks. Hazy images of home hovered at the back of his mind. He began to wonder why he had come to this place. "I was a man on a mission" he told himself. Was. He allowed a brief smile to cross his face at having just described himself in the past tense.

A decadent society spoiled for choice of inhabitable planets wouldn't bother to reclaim such a world. He remembered making landfall through a quagmire of black oil; the towering cities belching out smog, their automated power stations working dutifully to sustain a non-existant population. He remembered indulging himself in the illusion of company as timer circuits illuminated the city at night. The orange glow had been strangely welcoming, but as bulbs blew and went unreplaced the city gradually took on a cold complexion. It was as if the friendly face he thought he recognised had turned out to be a hostile stranger.

The initial geiger counter readings had let him know why the place had been left unreclaimed. What it didn't tell him is how the population had come to vanish, or where they had gone. What undeveloped land remained here was so beautiful, however, that he had elected to stay and salvage it as best he could. Using his engineering genius and portable manufacturing equipment he formulated a plan to rejuvenate the dying world. He devised hermetically sealed exo-skeletons to allow the dwindling animal population the freedom to forage while undergoing radiation-inhibitor therapy. He began searching for an effective radiation capture medium, experimenting on the crystals and minerals that existed in abundance.

As the months wore on he began to suspect he was not alone in this place after all. Second-hand signs of life emerged- although he initially dismissed them as mild paranoia brought on by his own diet of radiation-inhibitors, the evidence became increasingly concrete. His unseen compatriots, he quickly realised, were not friendly. He would return from expeditions to find his geo-engineering equipment smashed. Over time he would find the fallout-ravaged bodies of animals that had been prematurely released from their protective suits. His chemical filtration facilities were ransacked. Why was everything he cherished being destroyed?

He had been attempting to break through the stone cap of an old mine when that... thing had sped out of nowhere. It danced around the giant wrecking ball as if it were a game; gibbering, shrieking and baying like a blue demon. He thought he heard fragments of speech, but nothing intelligible. The maniacal grin and bright but soulless eyes had chilled him to the bone.

The city above him was dark now. The only remaining light was down here, swinging between the leaking bulkheads, in the cold chamber he had called home for the past... how many weeks? He couldn't count. He did know, however, that the creatures which taunted him could have finished him off long ago. To watch him run, to watch him suffer- it was all just a game to them.

The silence was broken by a voice, sickly with arrogance.  
"Why are you here?"

"I came here to..."

Then he stopped. Why had he come here? He cast his mind back to before landfall, before the twisted geometry of the landscape had both unsettled and intrigued him. He couldn't remember. It was all so hazy. Flashes of destruction and fighting appeared to him through the fog, but it was all so indistinct.

The voice spoke again.  
"How does it feel to be hunted? To feel that all you love is being pursued to destruction?"

More flashes of his forgotten life returned. The booming laughter, a large green crystal, some sort of energy weapon, a view from above what looked like a small village... A chill ran down his spine as he saw it. The blue demon, flanked by several others- those strange, upright half-animals. But the demon wasn't laughing or gibbering. A solitary tear glistened upon its cheek; a tear of defiance, but also of resignation. The thing gestured to it's companions to run, but they stood firm, rallying to him. The world erupted in searing light. The creatures before him attempted to move but their speed was not sufficient. He watched them as they opened their mouths, presumably to scream, but there was no time. The curious little encampment he had once hovered above was burned away to nothing. He remembered his glee at having finally secured the coveted gemstone. More flashes passed of victory, stalemate, exhaustion, defeat, imprisonment, despair...

Back in the room, he sat dazed by the recollection.

"I'm so sorry" he mumbled softly, unsure whether or not he meant it.

The creature shuffled out of the shadows. Leaning over the console, it placed its hand on the switch controlling the last light in the city.

"Time to come with us, now."

* * *

Behind the bars of a cell in the hospital wing of South Island prison, an unconscious old man exhaled for the last time. The intermittent beeping of monitoring equipment fell silent.

"He was such an angry man. He did some terrible things... he must have carried some demons." Said the officer.

"At least the whole thing is over now. Maybe he finally found peace." Said the nurse.

The officer looked down at the old man's contorted face.

"I doubt it."


End file.
